Well, kind of. Today, Da Brat popped up on an episode of Jermaine Dupri’s vlog, Living The Life, and revealed that she’s now (somewhat) free on work release. She’s currently working a 9-5 (which is like kryptonite for a rapper) making windows. She dropped by JD’s studio during a free pass out while meeting with her lawyer and chatted up the camera a bit. No word on when she’ll be back on the turf for good. Let’s get free.

Mikkey Halsted dropped by Go ILL Radio with Timbuck2 and DJ MoonDawg to discuss his work with the Youth Safety Network in Chicago and lending a helping hand to the young men and women of the community.

We now have the audio track of Skooda’s rendition of Gil Scott Heron’s ‘Dance With the Devil’. Mr. Chose has been flooding the internet lately with the upcoming release of his Top Five Material 2 mixtape and with good reason. Polo Rugby’s been doin numbers since its release and we wouldn’t expect much less from this.

Last week, while in NYC, Kanye did more than just walk the streets of SOHO – he also hit the town with some of his G.O.O.D. Music crew and tookover NYC hot spot CV to preview a handful of tracks from his upcoming album, GoodAss Job.

Last week, however, West popped up at Manhattan hot spot CV, with entourage in tow — Plain Pat, Consequence, Kid Cudi — for a rare public appearance since he first vowed to take time off following his VMA stunt. (West admitted at the time in a televised interview with Jay Leno that he was still dealing with the emotional complexities of his mother’s death.)

The unsuspecting crowd at CV partying to the tunes of DJ/ hip-hop producer Scram Jones got a first listen as Kanye premiered a handful of songs from his forthcoming album.

“Kanye came through. There’s a table right by the DJ booth, so they posted up right in front of the booth, and basically, after they hung out for a little while, 45 minutes later, Pat came in the booth and said he wanted to play some new stuff. He had a CD, and we put it in,” Jones explained to MTV News on Tuesday (May 25).

“Kanye leaned over and said, ‘Play track three.’ They all went nuts, Kid Cudi was dancing on the table, and then we cut it off at about a minute-and-a-half. We went to another record, and that got everybody excited, and Kanye said, ‘Play number seven.’ That’s how it kept happening. By the end of the process, we played four records,” the DJ added.

According to Jones, there was no microphone announcement made by West — he just asked for the records to be played and “kind of took over the spot.” Jones wasn’t able to identify the titles of the tracks he spun but described them as “real hip-hop,” sans Auto-Tune, singing, or even West’s trademark soul samples.

What are the chances ‘Ye would ever pop up at a spot in Chicago like this? Kind of upsetting, really.

The 10-track project finds the rising rap star flexing his lyrical muscles over industry instrumentals by such heavyweight producers as DJ Premier, Dr Dre, RZA and Timbaland (to name just a few). Included on Mike Murder are “Death to My InnerMe’s,” Schpitz’ Booth-premiered, highly-acclaimed freestyle over 50 Cent‘s “Death to My Enemies” and “Mike Is Like,” a flipped version of East Coast legend Nas’ “Nas Is Like.”